January 09, 2018

2018 Canadian politics preview

2018 will have plenty of drama in the major Canadian provinces but the federal focus is on 2019. The Conservatives and New Democratic Party have new federal leaders in Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh, respectively, to compete against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Bloc Quebecois also picked a new leader: Martine Ouellet, the only candidate who fulfilled the nomination requirements.

The primary federal debate of note in 2018 is whether the Trudeau government will get marijuana legalised by Canada Day 2018. The provinces are more encouraged by a 75% take of taxes plus anything over $100 million. The municipalities still want their share, too. Some in the unelected Canadian Senate are trying to trip up the deadline.

Philippe Couillard (Quebec) and Kathleen Wynne (Ontario) have non-Liberal targets on their backs. The Liberals have been in charge in Canada's largest province since 2003, mostly under Dalton McGuinty, who served as premier until 2013.

Wynne has been in charge since then. As we noted last year in the British Columbia election, Christy Clark was technically the first female premier to be re-elected. Wynne would like to be the first female premier to be re-elected and remain premier.

The push for Bill 62 can be linked to Couillard and the Liberals in Quebec trying to cater to the premier québec (Quebec First) type crowd just before the election.

Here are the tentative election dates for the provinces in 2018:

Ontario — June 7

New Brunswick — September 24

Quebec — October 1

The Liberals are also in charge in New Brunswick under Brian Gallant, the youngest premier in Canada. Gallant, like Couillard, is in his first term as premier.

The Liberals hung on barely in Nova Scotia in 2017. The Liberals in British Columbia did win more seats but the NDP forged a deal with the Green Party to run the western-most province. People stayed up really late even on the West Coast to find out that things weren't completely settled by bedtime on election night.

Brad Wall is stepping down as Saskatchewan premier following a special January 27 election within the Saskatchewan Party. Wall has served for more than a decade as the provincial premier. The new premier will have time to build momentum since the next election in that province won't come until 2020.

Here is the list of the provinces and the year of their last provincial election.

Canada got a new governor general and chief justice of the Supreme Court. The country developed some goodwill by not charging admission to Canada national parks in 2017. Hopefully, you took advantage of the deal.

Our fingers would have been less sore if Donald Trump hadn't gained the power that he did in late 2016. Miserable doesn't begin to describe what he has done with the U.S. relationship with Canada. NAFTA negotiations might have been useless based on what should be idle threats to the trade agreement. The new ambassador to Canada has truly proven useless once she finally got nominated and the length of time before actually starting the job.

Canada is down to 2 female provincial premiers with Christy Clark (British Columbia) technically winning the 2017 election but not able to form government. Rachel Notley (Alberta) will have a job at least to 2019 but Kathleen Wynne (Ontario) is up for re-election this year. Canada had 5 women in charge at the start of 2014.

Andrea Horwath has been the NDP leader in Ontario since 2009. Jennifer McKenzie is the leader of the New Brunswick NDP, however the party has 0 current seats in New Brunswick.

Tina Beaudry-Mellor and Alanna Koch are 2 of the 5 candidates from the Saskatchewan Party to replace Brad Wall as premier in a special January 27 election.